sadly, I think you're right ITN. while a whole bunch of money has been thrown at the banks, it came with very little rules or regs or guidance on what they could do with them. and very little has been done for struggling home owners - and what has been done, requires them to first ruin their credit, before they can get help - thereby making the ineligible for a new home for years to come. and the tax credit for new home buyers doesn't do a whole lot for struggling home owners, or for the housing market, as many people who this was designed for cannot afford the house or don't have the credit rating anyways to buy a new home.
oh, and most ARRA money comes with so many strings attached in terms of review requirements, transparency and reporting, that it takes federal agencies forever to spend the money and then many contractors don't want it because of the onerous reporting requirments and other strings attached.
FYP, to add a wee bit of nuance... The housing market was so out of whack and there were sooooo many groups profiting from the overheated market -- banks, inspectors, appraisers, real estate agents, banks, real estate agents, banks, real estate agents -- that to pin this massive debacle on an administration that's been in office less than a year is frankly ri-cock-ulous.
Correct. But keep in mind part of the point of that comparison was also the extra $500 / month being spent to own. In this case, that's $600 / year spent that wouldn't otherwise have been. So,all things considered, on average your rate of return is likely to be on par with bonds. Not bad at all but something to keep in mind when deciding on what to do. Is it really a steal with so much uncertainty over current and future rental incomes?
It was the Fed...first Greenspan, and now Bernanke... this free easy money will come back and bite us where it hurts, sooner or later. POTUS is pretty clueless, since NOTHING has changed from the Bush admin in terms of economic strategy. Bush=Obama when it comes to the economy.
The rebate program is being extended for another year AND it's being extended to "long-term home owners" who have been in their house for 5 years. First-Time Homebuyer Credit Are you also considering the tax benefits in that equation. I calculated my likely taxes for '09 and compared them to what they would have been had I not purchased a home this year. I did not count the first time buyer $$, and even w/ the urgent expenses I had to pay (new AC, fence and staircase replacement) I'm still coming out even AND I've got a way better place compared to the crappy apartment I was living in, which is an urgent priority. When you can buy a decent house/apartment in a decent neighborhood with one year's salary and the interest rates are still insanely low, there's really not much lower to go. You have to investigate and do your homework, but at least in my area, the properties that are selling are going to 1. cash buyers who are upgrading 2. investors looking to build their rental portfolio and 3. first-time buyers taking advantage of the $8,000 tax rebate program.
Actually it didn't get better , neither did help people being stronger :/ And at the moment the whole economy is kinda in a difficult period , transition i would say . In france , in the last 2 years the development of Credit companies has been incredible , there are so many of them such as those and the worse thing being thousands of people who get credits from all these sharks. But the economic situation doesn't help much , actually the rate of interrest for House credits has never been as low in France than now , but on the opposite site the prices on the House market have never been so high . So people don't know what to do exactly , and most of them just get overdebted without considering the risks , because all these ads , and marketing around credits are very appealing ...
Everything I write is my personal opinion: The fiscal system of the United States and most likely also of Europe has passed a point of no return so it is very likely that we'll see the final collaps of this polluted monetary system in the next three years. Money will massively lose worth due to inflation while the ones with property (houses) might profit as soon as the financial market will recover again. Depending on how fast the FED, ECB & Co. let it happen this may be in 3, 5 or 7 years, we don't know that yet. Nothing is really certain until the final big bang in the western monetary system will happen and hopefully flush away all that dirt and this worldwide money fraud committed by the owner banks of the FED and their participants in Europe.
I think we are at the bottom or close to it...the job market is picking up, renting is more expensive than buying in most markets, the economy is growing slowly, inventory is shrinking. Your mileage may vary
The housing market was/ is the worst in las Vegas Nevada but the prices had hit bottom and are rising now again not as fast as they used to in 2003-2006 but more at the speed of 1998-2002, due to the fact that people from other states and even country's like china and the middle east even Europe are buying them up for cash, unemployment is still the nations highest but the issue is job are only hiring for part time no full time any more but after six months you can try to get full time, so there's people that work two or three part time jobs